The plaintiff, Mohammad Kazemi, says he never authorized Payless to contact him via text message, but that at least 3 times between September 2008 and 2009 he received promotions from them on his phone.

From the SF Weekly:

Not only is this a pain in the ass, says Kazemi, a San Jose resident, but it’s costing people money. Also, it forced Kazemi to read junk like this (repeatedly):

Maybe they can also get an injunction to prevent them from using the term BOGO spuriously! BOGO has an implied “Free” on the end of it. If we allow BOGO to mean anything else, then we will go down a slippery slope that starts with BOGO 50% off and ends with BOGO for double the regular price and everyone just saying “Come to the BOGO sale!”

This happened to me! They asked for my phone number at checkout, I gave it to them, and I got a text message a few days later. I had to unsubscribe from their webpage. I don’t get free texts, and this really was unnecessary. The next time I shopped there, they asked again for my number, and I asked why this time. The cashier told me it was so I could get coupons and stuff. She almost refused to ring up the shoes I was planning on buying until I explained to her that I don’t get text messages. This turned into a 5 minute back and forth “fight” over it.

Maybe we find a way to use this to get my boyfriend off the random strip club text spam list he’s on. He’s never been there (I’m not the kind of GF who would care at all if he went, so I believe him), but his phone number is often confused – many of the calls he gets are wrong numbers. So I’m guessing there is a connection.

It’s to the point where he doesn’t actually even look at text messages, assuming they are all spam, because the send so many.

I actually had to have my text service terminated for a while because the spamming got so out of hand. I was receiving five to ten unwanted texts a day and nothing I did got them to quit. Verizon CS was unable to help, and they eventually had to just turn it off for a month.

@Skipweasel: There are different plans depending on the carrier, but the short answer is “yes”, some folks are charged for every text message they receive. And “yes” it is open to abuse for obvious reasons. I had 250 free texts per month. Every text sent or received above that cost me 10 cents. That can add up to some serious money over a one month span.

Although, I always refuse to give retailers my phone number (unless there is some warranty support involved) this is not exactly what I had in mind to avoid.

I just hated that companies would invent some reason or method to use that was not explicitly forbidden and rent, lease, sell, or otherwise allow some telemarketing arm of somebody’s ‘corporate partners’ to ring me up on the basis of a pre-existing relationship.

If I got texted, I would probably just go immediately to Defcon 1 and start howling at customer service over the phone.

I appreciate all the comments. I work in the mobile marketing industry. It’s a period of growth and acquisition. Lots of companies out there doing it the right and wrong way. We are governed by the Mobile Marketing Association. If you recieve a spam, or unsolicited texts, the company is not following the double opt in process and there are huge consequences to pay. Just wanted to inform you (don’t know about the Payless situation) for the next time someone asks for your mobile number to send coupons and offers. You MUST double opt in for it to be legit! For more info on mobile marketing: http://www.mobilemarketer.com or you can google the Mobile Marketeing Association for the ‘rules’ and ‘guidelines’.